


Susan, Former Queen, of Finchley

by Aureliee



Series: Practical Pevensies [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Adult Pevensies, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, It could go either way, LITERALLY, Not Really Character Death, Post-Book: The Last Battle (Narnia), Post-Canon, Post-War, Suburbia, Susan Pevensie Deserved Better, Susan Pevensie Never Forgot, The Problem of Susan, but for once it's not hellish, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29987010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aureliee/pseuds/Aureliee
Summary: Susan-centric, 50's era rebuilding. Susan Pevensie was always certain of what she had got. Ladies' clubs, gelatin, and holes in the fabric of a great Lady's stockings.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Series: Practical Pevensies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2205783
Kudos: 13





	Susan, Former Queen, of Finchley

**Author's Note:**

> I had originally intended to have done much better research to ground the historical aspects of this story. I know very little about the 50's and 60's, much less in British suburbia. However, reading the history of that time period—and particularly domestic women's roles in it—turned out to be horrifying. It was also really clear that a lot of authors' interpretations of the period found nothing wrong with how that society oppressed everyone who was not a wealthy straight Christian cis white man, and in fact depicted that oppression as an ideal to return to. And then, the comments...
> 
> Doing that research turned the feeling I originally had toward this fic—something positive about reclaiming womanhood in 1950's British suburbia, which Susan as written in canon clearly adopted out of societal necessity and then was immediately rejected by C.S. Lewis for it, as if it was her own failing—into a bad pit in my stomach when I realized that the reclaiming might be hard, because so much of it was still claimed by the original aggressors. If that metaphor makes sense.
> 
> I finally decided to give up on doing research and leave the historical inaccuracy as it is. I don't deserve to have to read books and articles idealizing a toxic culture that parts of modern society want to forcefully return us to today. Besides, it's not like this story is quality enough to merit real historical effort...
> 
> So, with that, please feel free to let me know whatever inaccuracies you notice, but otherwise, here it is, poorly researched and all.

Susan Pevensie of Finchley was an accomplished young woman by any estimation. Favored by men and well-liked by womenfolk, she conducted three ladies’ meetings a week with grace and poise, one hand balancing chattering housewives as they fretted, the other guiding homes and gardens into spotless order against the natural disarray. Her skirt was hemmed neatly, at a length none could disparage, and her face was ever made up perfectly, painted straight off a Victory poster. Well-bred and bright, a lady of a commoner. No one dared take issue with Susan Pevensie.

There were, of course, little bumps and plagues that sought to upset her manicured fiefdom. Life tried, on a predicable schedule, at least, to disturb the social hierarchy with a minor scandal, or to ruin flowerbeds by way of a rowdy neighborhood miscreant. These trifling upsets were handled with the most aplomb and self-possession: the demeanor of a diplomat, expecting due pushback from a small border nation eager to remind her that they haven’t been conquered, just yet.

Life moved on, and she tended to her Kingdom.

Her house was never out of order, and her roses never wilted. Her windows sparkled in the sun, though Susan never was caught cleaning, and the London area rarely had such natural light to offer.

There was very little that Susan could not control, if she only reached out and brushed it with a tidy, manicured finger. The uninformed might believe that this order was so effortless only because the woman had never known otherwise. Some suggested that life had, in fact, been too cowardly to introduce such disarray in the face of her scrutiny.

Try as she might, Susan Pevensie could not convince her family that this was not a figment of her own control.

\----

**Before:**

The first meeting of the neighborhood ladies’ garden association began with self-congratulations. The roses last spring were thrilling, and the party a success. They had a few items of business, of course, which they would manage as soon as they were done chattering about the season’s frippery.

The young debutantes on the block, newly introduced into society, deserved a warm welcome. And when they remembered Susan shortly—for she was hard to forget—they had only lovely things to say.

A new president had to be chosen after dear Mrs. Whitley stepped down, completing a long, successful run boasting of local accomplishment. An impressive achievement, which she would now pass on in favor of her newborn grandchildren, a pair of twins who were really quite something. And Miss Susan Pevensie, though young, had been proposed for the highest position, of course. Newly recognized as being no longer a girl, she was, nonetheless, eligible beyond her years.

Miss Pevensie was elected as of due course, and the meeting under her direction continued.

\----

**Then:**

Through the door and the pictured hallway of a spotless Finchley house, in a kitchen that looked like a magazine, sat a visitor who sought to threaten all that she had. Slouched in a corner with a casual lean, a flat cap topped a dark head of hair in a modest but comfortable display. He looked to all the world at home there, though in fact he very much was not. The city dirt on his practical shoes did not dare rub off on spotless tiles, though he eyed the cupboards like he would very much like to mess things up. His mere presence alone, it seemed, dimmed that corner of the golden room, casting shadows that wrapped every angle in secrets.

One might think she would feel threatened, if this setup had been designed by a weaker woman.

Susan Pevensie narrowed her eyes at this unwanted intrusion. She knew exactly why he might have come, and she appreciated it even less, knowing that he would rather not be here.

That was, of course, his own fault. Her style and her choices were not up for discussion. If she was a Queen, then her younger brother had always been her shadow. Engaged in his new career as he was now, ensconced happily in his own secretive realm right there in London, she could barely stand his presence in her home.

Pausing ever so slightly, Susan Pevensie engaged in a choreographed entrance into the kitchen.

Head held high, she greeted him.

\----

**Before:**

It had taken very little time for Susan to establish herself as the cornerstone, the linchpin, of a couple streets of London suburbs. Before long, Susan was running half the inner workings of the neighborhood. Mrs. Gilespie went to her for a spot of cooking advice, and for the first time in years, the tarts she brought to meetings no longer had soggy bottoms. Mrs. Ellis was at her wit’s end in planning her daughter’s nuptials, until Susan swiped the seating chart with one graceful hand and directed her toward the sofa with the other. Miss Cattermole had taken up a semi-permanent residence at Susan’s house around tea-time, and what was perhaps more impressive was how the chattering woman had always left by the hour’s end, despite her notoriety for overstaying her welcome. Mrs. Whitley herself came to Susan for advice when her grandchildren became too much for her and her daughter to handle and they needed a spot of help in keeping the house in order.

As time in suburban Finchley wore on, there were social gatherings to be planned, romantic matches to introduce, novel gelatin creations to discover. And it was all a rather delicate affair, wasn’t it, and required careful handling. They were all lucky to have her to navigate this.

Susan didn’t mind. This had always been her strong suit. And, deprived of any state secrets and the fate of nations to play with, the average suburban neighborhood’s prospects were just as important, and deserving of her time.

Before long, Susan was considered to rather be the best of them.

Good.

\----

**Then:**

Edmund was here to convince her. Of that, she was certain. The question was, why now, when her siblings had, for all intents and purposes, given up.

With steady hands, she completed a full and perfect tea service. Because, of her siblings, they had always been the most alike, he accepted quietly, without comment or protest.

That was, after all, her due as a Queen.

\----

**Before:**

Every woman in the neighborhood agreed that Miss Susan Pevensie was the absolute best she had seen. She was both flawless and attainable, aloof from undue attention and open to the right kind. She did feminine things with ease, but gave the impression that she might be rather good at more challenging ones, too. All in all, a gem, and one they might have resented if she hadn’t handled them all so effectively.

The men also liked Susan, but for different reasons. And because she was always excellent at walking that line—not just the tightrope of women’s expectations, but of men’s, too—Susan had a rotating cadre of boys who supported her loyally, but who were never quite close enough to catch their quarry, as everyone well knew.

Every social season came and went, and while there were a lot of boys—enough to derive her popularity from it, not enough to gain notoriety—there featured disappointingly few decent men. Still, Susan smiled, and simpered, and patted on her lipstick. And she got what she wanted from them, if not what she wished.

But that was the ultimate purpose of a diplomat, wasn’t it? To make someone like you just as much as you wanted them to, and use them by their affections, all the same. Her work had always taken place in social maneuverings and romantic favors, negotiated over dinners of fantastic cuisine among suitors, dressed in her finest.

Susan knew her siblings would scorn her recent work. Then again, it was hardly below her, in this day and age. A man could be childless and wifeless, live out his life in the throes of academia or professional achievement without thought of what he was missing, save for paying a cook, a laundress, and a maid.

A woman was not so lucky. And Susan had always done what she needed to survive. To thrive, even.

Her siblings could not all say the same.

\----

**Then:**

They made small talk, of course, as was only polite. Her siblings were none of them estranged, and they should hardly bear the appearance of fighting when they, in fact, were not. Because he had to ask, he asked. And because she must inquire, she heard all about the adventures of her siblings in the grownup world, now by all appearances adult.

Peter wasn’t doing well—but that was to be expected. Medical school. What was he thinking? Medical school was something well to-do boys toyed with when they could not conceive of another respectable, middle class job. It was only to be anticipated that he would quit not long after starting. He was never studious or staid. She told Edmund that. He shrugged, a grimace almost unnoticeable. He knew this, she was aware, but what was he to do with their unruly elder brother? The man felt he had to use his time in this world to help people, so Medical School had to be attempted. Susan refrained from pointing out the bare futility of that notion. Or the stinging implication that it couldn’t be done through other avenues, for that matter.

Lucy was a scandal in the making, and their mother’s only consolation was that at least the girl was happy. Enrolled in university herself, of all things, and determined to follow in her brother’s footsteps. Susan understood that path for Lucy. (Healing had always suited her, a voice murmured in the back of her mind.) But a doctor! Better a nurse. This world had a place for a female nurse. Protests and arrests aside—again, really!—the girl would only land herself in trouble. Luckily, the only scandal she wasn’t making was in indiscrete liaisons with college co-eds. Unluckily, that meant there would be no one to marry her when she, uncontrollable as she was, slipped up with her beaus from less reputable sources. Susan told Edmund. Edmund shifted slightly, an allowable sign of discomfort, when the arrests were mentioned—and really, she had assumed that publicity on that front been avoided by influence exercised through his new job. He needn’t tell her what she had already guessed.

Edmund could not talk about his new job. He brushed her off with a wan description of an assistant to a government undersecretary to an undersecretary of something unimportant and ultimately, implausible. But he was silly to think she was not aware. Susan was self-limiting, not stupid. Her siblings ought to have known better than to think her oblivious when in fact, she alone was smart enough to know when to let things lie. Her brother sent her a careful look, despite her bland demeanor, as if sensing the remarks she left unsaid.

And she, of course, was ruler of this little kingdom of grocery lists, neighborhood meetings, and cookbooks. She would not apologize for this. She had built it, and was proud.

The conversation carried on, each grasping tidbits the other wished not to give. Perhaps he would not get to whatever end-of-days proposal he had for her.

No, that was simple. She rarely allowed herself delusion or idle hope.

\----

**Before:**

It was Thursday, the first of the next month, and a party had to be thrown for the soon-to-cease-to-be, _Miss_ Mary Cattermole, who would now be changed into Mrs. Henry Archibald Cartwright in a lovely June ceremony. Miss Cattermole was ecstatic, which meant that Miss Pevensie would be getting numerous calls within the hour, fielding complaints about the girl’s indomitable cheer and energy. Susan didn’t mind, of course—comfortable people did so reach out for reassurance when something rocked their boat just a touch. That was what she was here for. Such was essential to the practice of diplomacy.

\----

**Then:**

She was right to expect it. Just after she had served them both tea, and quite some time before she could politely finish up the encounter, he asked.

“To be honest, Su, I have to bring it up.” He said. “Narnia, do you remember it?”

\----

**Before:**

As solid and unchanging as her current situation was, there was one word that might cause it all to come crashing down. Day in and day out, Susan chatted, and she phoned, and she stitched, and she poured.

It was easy to have lost herself in all of it.

It had not been easy to leave.

\----

**Then:**

Susan refused to talk about Narnia. They were all fools for wallowing in old fantasies of that place. She would not go there, and he was a fool to think he could bully her into it. Remember Narnia? She didn’t think so.

She told him this.

\----

**Before:**

The biggest jewel in Susan’s crown was a presidency of the local ladies’ garden club, which met on every Friday afternoon. A commitment, certainly, but doable for every woman whose children were school aged. Also doable for Susan, who had none. You see, Susan herself was an outlier, rattling around in a large, empty house with no husband, no children, and no elderly parents to care for. Still, everyone seemed to forget that oddity, enamored as they were by the image she had cultivated.

What did it matter, that her circumstances were strange, when her garden bloomed so prettily, her house was effortlessly spotless, her dresses tailored to perfection, her figure and coiffure a picture from a magazine? What rumors—of strange and deviant siblings in scandalous walks of life, of parents who had rather given up on their queerness and left town altogether—could take hold when confronted with her picture-perfect poise and a quirk of her brow? After all, if _she_ could be ruined by her secrets, what did it say for the rest of them?

Besides, it wasn’t as if every woman on the block didn’t have something to hide. A discretely filled prescription, a rubbish bin full of empty bottles, strange thoughts that crept into their minds at night, another woman’s earring on the floor of their husband’s car. They hid that damning evidence, took desperate tips from advice columns in the ladies’ home journals, and painted over their expressions and the discolorations on their skin, out of necessity.

Susan was an absolute gift to the neighborhood. What did it matter if she might have things to hide? Her stitching was excellent, and her manners severe.

\----

**Then:**

Susan refused to talk about childhood stories turned deluded fantasy. Edmund, who ought to have known better, seemed determined to force it. That was unfortunate.

Susan sipped her tea, firmly expressionless.

Something dark began to grow in Edmund’s demeanor. “You know, I always warned you that delusion doesn’t shape the world into what you want it to be. I think we played that one out, actually, with a beau or two of yours who turned out to be rather not as enamored by you as you thought. Remember that? Didn’t turn out well, as far as I recall, did it? It wasn’t true then, and it doesn’t carry now. Narnia is real, whether or not you accept that.”

Bastard.

Still, responding to that would be losing. And Susan didn’t lose. What beau? That had never happened.

Edmund searched her face, but she gave him nothing, stubbornly holding her silence on the subject. He finally scoffed. “Oh, come on, Su. I know that, for all that you would have Peter and Lucy think otherwise, you can’t have truly forgotten it.”

There was nothing to forget.

“No?”

Edmund carefully set down his teacup. Susan had a feeling that, but for a great deal of control, he would have slammed it. If it was any other subject, Susan might have been concerned. It wasn’t like her brother to be so desperate.

Still, the stubborn boy kept trying. “You at least have to have noticed those, those little _reminders_ that come to you. All day, all night, from the littlest things to the greatest. That you can’t get away from. I know it calls to you, all of us get them—dreams. Stray thoughts, flashes of memory. Even when we’re trying not to think of it. It haunts all of us.”

Haunting? He was the only thing haunting her on this topic.

“Though, I suppose none of us are as determined as you are to forget.” He finished, almost murmuring. Susan had a feeling she wasn’t quite meant to hear that bit.

He looked at her, as if for reassurance. He shouldn’t have.

Edmund shook his head, frowning. “Well, then maybe you should stop pretending you can’t see it. You think this domestic farce you have, with your lawns and your flowers and your _housewives_ is more real than our shared memories? You think this little...charade, means anything at all? Act like you’re the practical realist all you like—between the four of us, you’re currently the furthest gone from reason.”

Susan’s face went tight. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and you know it. But I won’t allow you to insult me.”

\----

**Before:**

The first bake sale of the season was a grand success.

Mrs. Gilespie said, “ ”.

And Mrs. Ellis said, “ ”.

And Miss Cattermole said something too, but not much attention was paid to her.

\----

**Then:**

Edmund shook his head, opening his mouth to respond with some animation, then closing it again. He gestured toward her, hands pleading silently for her to see sense, to no avail.

“Not insult you—Susan!” Edmund’s jaw clenched. He took a breath, held it in with a grimace, then let it out.

“Susan. You can’t tell me our life didn’t happen. I deal in truth and lies for a living, it’s my job to engineer people’s perceptions to cover up the truth.

“And I am telling you, that was real.” Edmund huffed, angrily scrubbing his hands over his face before continuing.

“You cannot have learned what you hold in your mind without Narnia. You cannot understand what you do about the world around you if you were really always just a sheltered little girl in Finchley. Where do you possibly think it could have come from? Fifteen years of Galmian silks and Calormene satins, of Archenland embroidery and dryad weaving and the clang of the dwarves’ forges dug deep in the hills you traveled by horseback.

“Fifteen years of political speeches and careful invitations and suitors who courted you with gifts beyond belief. State dinners laden with Northern sweetmeats and Narnian berries and a side of lethal deception. Fifteen years of battle wounds and letters written in your hand on behalf of the fallen, that gut you in spirit in a way you never could have known before. The knowledge you already had of womanhood when you returned to being a girl, the weight of a crown on your head and shoulders. That gruesome exhale a being makes when they’re stabbed in the chest right in front of you. You conquered nations and held one in your grasp. There are a thousand books and a dozen disciplines and hundreds of people that you knew too dearly to have imagined. You can’t tell me you think it was all just dreamsilk.”

A teacup shattered.

Susan thinks it was hers.

\----

**Before:**

Susan flips a page in her cookbook. She writes down a recipe.

It’s a good one. Flour, sugar, eggs. But not too much to be seen using, not so soon after rationing.

If she thinks about it hard, she remembers something similar made with the best kind of honey.

\----

**Then:**

The kitchen rang with silence as her brother’s vivid words echoed and faded against the wallpaper.

Susan said nothing. She had nothing to say.

Edmund looked at her, expectant. As if he had thought that maybe, just maybe, after all of that—but no. Of course, she was to be a disappointment. This ‘one last chance’ business was rather not her fault, now was it?

Visibly giving up, Edmund pushed back his chair back with a sigh, moving to try to stand. “The others thought you were too far beyond reach. I came here to give you one last try.”

Ah, so this was a favor.

An ugly shadow passed over her face.

“You really think so poorly of me, brother mine?” Her tone was dangerous. Susan drew herself up out of her seat with ramrod straight posture, to loom over him across the small kitchen table. Her nails dug into the wood as she grasped the edges to pull herself in further. Her eyes and face were dark and stormy. In her heels, she was almost as tall as he was, and with her terrible presence alone, she stopped him from standing. “That you would come here to pity me, insult me, shrouded as a compliment? That you would think I’d fall for that, when your pale attempts at cunning words were always too impotent to move my heart.

“Then you have truly miscalculated the outcome of your visit.” She allowed herself to drop primly back in her seat with a hateful thud.

Now incensed, her brother re-engaged to meet her challenge.

“Me, think poorly of you? That’s rich, considering I’m the only one who bothers with your defense!” He slammed his hands on the table, silverware clinking as his raw anger finally rose from its slumber. “I don’t know what’s been going on with you, that you’re so determined to give up on us like this. But if you don’t care at all, just say so! And we’ll stop bothering you with our presence.”

“As if I’m the one at fault!” She snapped back. “You’re the one hiding in fairytales.”

\----

**Before:**

Despite recent poor weather, the garden outside 12 Hallowcrest Drive was doing well.

The roses bloomed beautifully, pruned just right, as always. The grass was regulation height, not that she ever, herself, mowed it. And the planters contained a precise assortment of flowers that fit perfectly, not just with the decor of the house, but with the exact fashion of the current trends. It was hardly the palace gardens, but then again, she didn’t live at Buckingham.

All in all, her garden was an ordinary masterpiece, and it grew beautifully even through unseasonably bad spring storms.

It could do nothing less for Susan, of Finchley.

\----

**Then:**

Edmund’s eyes narrowed. When he spoke, he was intense, but deadly calm. “The only one in hiding is you, sister mine.”

“Hiding? You call my life here hiding?” She lost it, and raged. “Look what I have built here. Look what I created.”

She swept her hand to the side, as if to present something. What, she didn’t know, except that the kitchen and the lawns outside were spotless.

“All I see are a bunch of shut-in women wasting their lives on starching dresses and making jello.” Edmund said with scorn. “They mean nothing, in the scheme of things. And the worst of it all is that they allow themselves to be used like this. They take pride in being simple, petty, lesser.”

Edmund got to his feet with force, turning to go, then he stopped in his tracks. He shook his head. “I can’t believe you chose this.”

Susan stood up to meet him, chair screeching back behind her. With iron self-control, she suppressed her impulse to slap him. When she drew in breath to speak, she quivered with rage.

“Do not think to scorn me for engaging in this.” Susan told her brother. “It may have been a choice, but my options were severely limited.”

She pushed the laden tea tray like a shield between them, and whirled further into the kitchen to turn her back on her brother. Porcelain scattered underfoot from where it had landed on the tile earlier, but it was swept about in a spiral of solid white pumps and a perfect A-line skirt. Susan had to take comfort in the little pride she had got.

It wasn’t like her siblings weren’t living pale shadows of their former lives, anyway. Peter was a medical school dropout, not High King of anything. Lucy was doing god knew what, although she’d never exactly had high standards for behavior, anywhere. Edmund had crawled back to doing the one thing he knew best: the royal dirty work, kept shadowed and secret.

In comparison, her life here wasn’t anything to scorn at.

Noble suitors or the boys down the street, towering cakes or olive gelatin, silver spoons or polished pewter, a great string of pearls or a single choker of slightly duller quality. What difference did it make? She had lived the life available to her, in either world.

How dare he, he who would never face such ignominy, scorn that.

\----

**Before:**

The party preparations were in full swing. Mrs. formerly-Mary Cattermole hurried past with streamers, while the three Mrs. Blightwicks struggled with a tower of a cake. Gelatin-assisted creations jiggled as the tables got bumped in the chaos. A gaggle of children was, of course, afoot, after the sweets—”No, Johnny, out!”—and the Parker daughters were carting in mounds and mounds of cakes, pies, and molds.

In a calm center of the chaos, Susan Pevensie was directing traffic with the poise of a lady and the severity of a drill sergeant. She was, as always, dressed immaculately for the event, dark locks curled in a simple coif, her face powdered pale and smooth.

As flawless as her facade presented, some of the older women couldn’t help but notice that something was just a touch off about their fearless leader.

It wasn’t something she said; her tone was as smooth and articulated as ever. And nothing in her neatly-pressed dress or perfect makeup hinted at blotchy eyes that needed covering. But something of her affect was, perhaps, flat, just slightly underperforming on her usual charisma. And if one looked, really looked hard, you could catch a glimpse of her mouth as it thinned in distress—just for an instant, as she turned between presenting smiles and greetings.

No one asked, of course. Single, Miss Pevensie was, and while it was easy to forget this when she commanded married women with children past her age, no woman would begrudge her a spot of heartbreak for a beau. Or perhaps it was her family. Rumor had it that her brother was in town, and as her siblings visited so little, there might be awful family business afoot.

Instead, Mrs. Gilespie went swiftly to fetch a set of tea-towels from her home when the linens fell victim to a spill. Mrs. Edgecombe calmed her rowdy boys and sent them off to bring back a spare plate of biscuits, wisely kept back as replacements. Mrs. Abbott held her tongue a bit more than she perhaps normally would have, in the presence of unlimited cooking sherry. Small favors, the only kind suburban housewives could manage.

And when Susan Pevensie turned away for a moment, to stare blankly at the manicured lawns and cookie-cutter houses, no one watched as Victory-red fingernails gouged holes in a new set of stockings.

\----

**Then:**

Susan knew this would not end well. And Edmund had clearly come here, expecting nothing less of her. If he wanted to accuse her, so be it. She was guilty of nothing. But she would not sit here and take it.

As she prepared to storm out and end their confrontation completely, she addressed her brother to kick him out. The look that faced him was nothing short of queenly. “If you won’t hold to my hospitality, you shan’t be welcome to it. You can get out, now, with haste.”

Instead of arguing back, her brother dropped back into his abandoned chair, defeated. Edmund passed a hand over his face, his dark hair curling above his forehead in close resemblance to hers. Young as he was, he looked tired and resigned. “Su, I beg you to reconsider. We only wish to talk, is all. We are family. Please try to remember it.”

Suddenly even more furious, Susan cast about for something to distract her. She tugged the tablecloth into order and slammed the spoon back in the sugar bowl. She forcefully stacked the remaining teacups, lukewarm water sloshing muddy leaves onto the engraved silver tray of the antique tea service. She did not break her strict self-control. She refused to meet his gaze.

“That’s all you ask, is it? Because of course it’s as if nothing’s changed for you.” Bitter, she stood abruptly and brushed out her skirts. “Then, you may leave.”

She thought she heard a rumble from the stormclouds as she strode toward the door of her kitchen with every intention of exiting without a word. Behind her, Edmund failed to go, instead slumping forward onto the table. Some part of that poor showing sparked her outrage.

“But that’s the worst part, isn’t it?” She whirled around to speak to him one last time, a hand clutched tight to the doorframe to anchor her. “For you will always remember you were once a King and I was Queen. And that pittance, to remember, is all that we’re permitted. A life gone by, of sacrifices made. And then we’re told to relinquish it, only to remember. Dusty memories, as our reward. Personally, I would rather have what I had built—or be innocent of all that I’m missing.”

And then, she was gone. A chair scraped as Edmund Pevensie left an empty room.

\----

**Now:**

In one life, she convinced him. In another, she did not. But that is not a part of our story, because either way, the ending is:

\----

The neighborhood party of the year was in full swing. Three Baked Alaskas showcased the skill and idle toil of the women who had served them. Roses bloomed neatly through the half-curtained windows. A gelatin mound stuffed with clashing tastes topped a lavishly-decorated table—though all within the appropriate limits of post-war suburban decorum.

At the center of it all was the woman who had built it, the heart of the kingdom which could not crumble to dust under her strict oversight. Few noticed her true importance to the setup, but nonetheless they crowded around her like moths to a flame, trusting in their minds that she would not burn them, cease to support them.

And she had stayed for them—because how could she not? Chance and happenstance could not break that. This choice persisted, regardless of the vagaries of time.

Still, she felt that exact moment that a train switched tracks. Deep in her chest, a decision clicked, and the world for one instant tilted around her vision. In that moment, she knew. That much could not be stolen from her.

Susan Pevensie spoke unerringly to colleagues and guests. She complimented the food and touched up the decorations. She waited calmly for the appropriate moment to take her leave. Unperturbed, she made her excuses, and sought out a bit of privacy, to freshen her makeup.

Susan Pevensie, either version, stared into her reflection like a window.

\----

When she had walked through that door between the trees, all those years ago, for a moment in that nothingness, she had just been Susan.

That did not last, of course. Because then she had to exist in space and time, and to live in either world, she must be known not as she was or had been—not Just Susan, not Susan the Schoolgirl, not Susan the Queen.

She had always known she would be barred for the impossibility. A woman is rarely allowed to remain in the house of her birth.

And so she became Susan, former Queen, of Finchley.

And, yes, she was aware, her grammar was flawed. She was not incorrect, not in this one most certain thing about her life, but the introduction was wrong nonetheless. Those phrases were interpolated, construed all wrong, never meant to be said at once. They existed. As a fact, as neither, as both, unfit to grace the language in which she spoke, imperfect for her otherworldly purposes. Susan, former Queen, of Finchley.

In a mind that was weaker, a girl might just break down from it. But this would never be that story.

Susan, former Queen, of Finchley, turned away from her bathroom mirror. If she hesitated to enter the room beyond, it was only for a heartbeat.


End file.
